Welcome Home and Welcome 2008!

Yes, we made it home today, yay. So looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. However, I wasn't as keen on the pile of stuff I now have to put away, and the pile of laundry to sort and clean. Ugh. The joys of coming home.

We were up early this morning, thanks in part to Ariel, who was ready to greet 2008 with gusto. I had packed most of our stuff up the night before, and we had the remainder of our breakfast from the day before in our mini fridge (yes, those big American breakfasts can feed you for 2 meals), so we ate that in our room to save time. Our goal was to check out by 9am, and we succeeded. Ariel was sad to leave the hotel, and was waving to all the staff. She did get one last ride on the baggage cart though. Hee.


We got set to go load up the car, but found ourselves fighting against the crazy wind. Yikes. Ariel thought it was a hoot nearly getting blown over, but I wasn't about to be chasing our belongings around the parking lot. So Ken brought the car around, and that made it slightly easier. Ariel just kept laughing at us.


One thing we wanted to do before going home was to stop at a Disney store. The one in our area is sooooooooo out of the way we never get to it, so this was a perfect opportunity. We looked up one and found it at this really pretty mall. I can't get over how nice these malls look in these parts. Maybe because they are newer compared to ours back home. Either way, we saw this really big horse statue outside and Ariel started yelling 'HORSE!' So we had to have a picture with it.


Ariel fell in love with the Disney store. She was dancing to the music videos from High School Musical, playing with the mountains of stuffies, and generally having a ball. Makes me excited to think what she will think of Disneyland one day. Ken got some cool shirts at the shop, a Nightmare one, Grumpy and Donald Duck. I figured after a wonderful presentation he deserved it. (Plus they were on sale.) Ariel got some pjs for fall, and I got a Ratatouille puzzle and pin. I love those rats.

Ken found a cute place for lunch called Ruby's Diner. It was very retro, totally up Ken's ally. They even had a toy train traveling around about our heads. Too cool. Ariel loved the card board menu car they gave her. She kept making car noises while pushing it along the table. After a yummy lunch we got on the road since we knew Ariel would crash soon, thus making driving easier.


It was a uneventful drive, which is always a blessing. We got to the boarder crossing and only had to wait 10 minutes. Ariel woke up just as we got there, so that was perfect. We stopped in at Nana and Papa's on the way home, since they were eager to see us... er, her. Hehe.

The remainder of the evening was low key. Poor Ariel was pretty over tired in general and was clingy and whining. We managed to get her down to bed quite early, so I am hoping she sleeps well tonight. Nothing like sleeping in your own bed.